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Sited – PressThink

February 27, 2011

There aren’t many people who can claim to have energised contemporary debates about journalism as much as New York University’s Jay Rosen. So if you’re not already reading his blog PressThink, read on, says Lawrie Zion.

‘I call this blog PressThink because that’s the kind of work I do. The title points to forms of thought that identify “journalism” to itself — but also to the habit of not thinking about certain things.’

It was eight years ago — an aeon, given just how quickly the media is changing — that New York University professor Jay Rosenwrote those words. Since then, thanks to his musings on PressThink, his influence on the way we do think about the press and media has steadily grown.

While Rosen has only fleetingly been a hack himself, he has become increasingly influential among journalists over the last five years. Individual posts such as ‘The People Formerly Known as the Audience’ from mid-2006, have reverberated well beyond the blogosphere, finding a particular resonance in those parts of the mainstream media that have sought to embrace the era of participatory media, including our own ABC.

Speaking of which, the ABC ran a terrific interview in August 2010 where Rosen outlined the problems with what he describes as ‘horse race journalism’ — a term that he used to characterise much of the media coverage of the recent Australian election.

Three things. In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance.

For any journalist who knows what it’s like to be stalked by the indignant incantations of media ‘bias’ this is refreshing stuff. But of course, that just happens to be my view.

One Response to “Sited – PressThink”

Web 2 Technologies have largely eliminated the barriers that prevented citizen journalists from publishing their work.

Citizen Journalists are necessary because they often provide diversity and coverage of minority issues that are not seen in mainstream media such as the Murdoch Press.
The real challenge for paid journalists is for them to accept that the work of citizen journalists is valid and not to act as gatekeepers or defenders of the establishment.

Sadly the line between the fourth estate and government has become blurred. The mainstream media has become an unofficial mouthpiece of the government or at least a parroter of the narrow orthodoxy shared by the mainstream political parties of the day.
Often this orthodoxy or bipartisanship results in policies that are not in the public interest.

However there is hope.

The deposing of governments that have held office for decades in the middle east is due in no small part to the role played by citizen journalists on the front line of the struggle in being able to get the inconvenient truth out to the world.

In the past all a dictator had to do to cling to power was to cut off the telephones, ban foreign journalists – and then go about the task of literally killing the opposition.

Rank and file Arab citizens have had enough and are organising on line as well as on the streets and are reporting the progress of their struggles to the world.For instance
Libyan Citizen Journalists by reporting the atrocities against Libyan citizens by Gaddafi resulted in the United nations Security Council taking action which may alter the end result in Libya as well as saving the lives of thousands of citizens.
Who said the internet wasn’t revolutionary.

Each government that lies to its people must be quaking in their collective boots – not because Rupert Murdoch is coming to get them but because citizen journalists which includes wikileaks are making them accountable.

The role journalists must play is not to be glorified public relations vehicles for corrupt governments and powerful corporations. Journalists must be independant and fearless as well as telling their audience what they need to know – not what the powerful want to hear.

etc...

In the latest Choc Tops episode, Chris and James take a look at Ridley Scott’s fresh Alien claims, Jurassic World’s new website and Matt Smith’s zombie fetish.

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